Solidarity with Abahlali baseMjondolo

Update and follow-up on attempts to generate solidarity for Abahlali baseMjondolo and the Kennedy Road 13 during recent speaking tour to the UK and Ireland.

Following a successful meeting convened by the Zabalaza Anarchist Communist Front (ZACF) we are working with social movements such as the Landless Peoples Movement (LPM) and Anti-Privatisation Forum (APF) in Johannesburg to organise a protest march in solidarity with Abahlali. We will probably also be meeting with an Abahlali baseMjondolo (AbM) delegation this week.

To donate solidarity funds to Abahlali baseMjondolo send money to:

Please mark payments for Abahlali baseMjondolo and be sure to read thisbefore making a donation. If you are unsure or have any queries please contact Abahlali baseMjondolo directly or contact the Zabalaza Anarchist Communist Front (ZACF) and we will forward your queries to Abahlali. Find contact details for Abahlali and ZACF at the end of this email.

When making a donation please give "ZACF Tour" as a reference, so that Abahlali know this money is being donated in response to our solidarity efforts, and send an email notification to Abahlali baseMjondolo stating how much you have transferred. Please also copy the ZACF in this email notification.

You may state whether you would prefer Abahlali to use the money for humanitarian relief or legal defence, although we strongly recommend that Abahlali be left to decide this themselves.

Abahlali is still under attack and it is essential that we mobilse internationally to demand, amongst other things, the immediate release of the Kennedy Road 13.
Please send notification of any solidarity or support initiatives to Abahlali baseMjondolo and the ZACF as well as posting them, where relevant, on Anarkismo.net

Contact details for the Zabalaza Anarchist Communist Front:

It will, understandably, not be possible nor practical for everyone who would like to show support for Abahlali baseMjondolo to do so by means of donating money, organising or participating in solidarity actions and events or what have you. It is therefore imperative that we recognise that the attacks on Abahlali baseMjondolo and the popular classes of South Africa as a whole are part of a broader international attack on the working class and poor in light of a global economic crisis. As the profits of the boss class come increasingly under threat due to the partial collapse of an inherently unstable and crisis-prone economic and political system, the ruling class will seek to reduce wages and living standards, cut social spending and by any means necessary recover its lost profits - to the point where it will repress and violently attack popular resistance in defence of previously won gains or, as is the case in South Africa, sit back and allow the legitimate frustration of a working class betrayed be misdirected against convenient scapegoats.

One of the best things people can do then to show support for Abahlali baseMjondolo and the struggling people of South Africa, and the continent as a whole, is to intensify their activity and militancy in the local struggles in which they are engaged; be they in support of striking bin men and postal workers, against the closure of universities or cuts in social spending. By escalating our level of combativeness in response to an onslaught on our rights and dignity we the dispossessed, the marginalised, the poor and the indignant can send a resounding message of support to Abahlali baseMjondolo and the Kennedy Road 13 in which we declare, for all to hear, that as long as there is exploitation and oppression there will be working class resistance; that until all are free, no one is.

Let us remind ourselves then, in these times of crisis and reaction, what it means to be a revolutionary:

To be a revolutionary is to advocate a revolution. It is to point out that the state will not permit peaceful, gradual, legal, changes to a better social system. It is to WARN the people that when the economy gets worse, the capitalists will take back the reforms they have given in the past—as they have begun to do. At some point, when the capitalists feel threatened enough, they will whip up racist and sexual hysteria. They will abandon bourgeois democracy, cancel elections, organize fascist gangs, smash unions, murder leftists, and arrange a military coup. Working people need to prepare to defend ourselves, to strengthen unions, and to engage in general (city-wide) strikes. We need to popularize the idea of workers’ and community councils, for replacing the state, and of an armed working class, for replacing the specialized police and military.
(Price, http://www.anarkismo.net/newswire.php?story_id=9513)

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